Review-- "Gangs of New York"

Martin Scorsese filming a gangster epic set in 1860's New York should have been so much better. I'm not saying Gangs of New York is a bad movie. It's a very, very good movie, but the expectations surrounding it were insurmountable, which raises some issues over how hype can make or break a film. Even if it was impossible to create what people wanted, Gangs of New York has problems that limit it from being a masterpiece of the genre. Scorsese is my favorite director, so I wanted this to be the apex of gangster films, an American epic that lived up to its tagline "America was born in the streets." Gangs of New York is at its most interesting when it focuses on its American-ness. My favorite sequence of the film was of Irish immigrants reaching the New York docks, enlisting in the US Army and then boarding another ship to fight for their new country. What it means to truly be an American is a theme that runs through Gangs of New York, from the xenophobic Natives run by Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis), to the Chinese immigrants getting by on cultural exhibition, to the black characters, free but still oppressed, to the Catholics. Faith is also an undercurrent of the film. In another of my favorite scenes, three very different characters pray to ostensibly the same god, asking different things. The content of their prayers, when compared to the circumstance of each character, illuminate an America united in belief but sharply divided in class. In the film's astounding climax, the various organizations and gangs square off and dreams and ambitions clash, leaving a city in ruin. It's a satisfying end to the various plots and themes of the movie, even if the road there is rough.

In summary, Amsterdam Vallon (Leo DiCaprio) is an Irish ruffian whose father (Liam Neeson, who matches DDL in a fantastic opening sequence) was killed by The Butcher. After a long detachment from The Five Points, he goes back to a world completely ruled by The Butcher. Day-Lewis is completely mesmerizing as The Butcher, and DiCaprio struggles to match. I've liked DiCaprio in supporting roles or ensemble casts, but to square him off against DDL is unfair. I struggled to think of other actors at that time who could have been cast, and I failed. DiCaprio feels too blunt, his anger too quiet. When Bill talks about the "murderous rage" in him, I couldn't be convinced. None of this is to say DiCaprio fails-- he's at worst adequate and at best very good. His performance can be a synecdote for the film at large.

The middle of the film gets bogged down by a love story that wants to go many places but reaches none of them. Jenny (a not so wooden Cameron Diaz) is an interesting character in theory-- a thief taken in by The Butcher, and she should be the ideal love interest for Amsterdam, but in a film bulging with thematic elements, it's too much. Gangs of New York can't be criticized for a lack of ambition. It's really trying to be profound, and Scorsese highlights its highs wonderfully, often reaching the transcendent (particularly during the beginning and end of the movie) and manages to keep its slow parts interesting. His eye for detail accentuates the hypocrisy of the Natives and the squalor they keep the immigrants in. The outrageous costumes and accents add to a sense that America really was born in the streets, something that's not recognizable to modern sensibilities.

To end this, I want to end on what's easily the best component of Gangs of New York: Daniel Day-Lewis. To put it lightly, he learned an accent that doesn't exist anymore for this role. He commandeers scenes with an amiable menace that demands respect and admiration and fear all at once. His interactions with the world around him show the political warrior he is, winning acolytes over with words and force. He's a rising America with all its charm and faults. In another standout scene, he talks about his respect for Amsterdam's father, the only man who he killed he had respect for. He's in an interesting position with the Irish-- many work for him, and while he despises them, he comes to consider Amsterdam a son. It may be that he views Amsterdam as a true American, someone who has risen to the stars and stripes, while still retaining their roots. He's moral and amoral, racist and accepting, a walking force of nature. If that's not metaphor I don't know what is.

Final Grade: B+  

Film Review-- "Burn After Reading"

How do you follow up one of the most acclaimed movies of the decade? Go batshit insane, apparently. Burn After Reading offers very little in terms of cohesion, logic, or rationality, but by plunging off the deep end, the Coens offer a sense of the absurd entropy that describes human interaction. There's a quote that goes something like "never attribute malice to what is really incompetence." To me, the biggest argument against conspiracy theories is that it's near impossible for large groups of people to coordinate and have it not be a giant disaster. In two pivotal scenes (it's hard for a scene to not be pivotal if JK Simons is in it), Burn After Reading, two high-up CIA officials admit they don't know what's going on and that they haven't learned anything from their experiences. It's a hard pill to swallow-- we search for meaning in things, how we can improve, but sometimes we can't. Burn After Reading accepts that, and although its portrayals of idiots and violence can be alienating, the absurdism of the various characters concoct a farce that hits melancholy.

The plot starts out simple enough, but convolutes in typical Coen fashion. Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) quits his job as a CIA analyst. His wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) wants a divorce, and when a personal CD with his financial records is found by gym employees Chad (Brad Pitt, who steals the film as an arrogant airhead) and Linda (Frances McDormand, fantastic as always), they assume it's top secret information. They try to extort Cox, hoping to get money for Linda's cosmetic surgeries. In all of this, Katie has an affair with Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney, who's both charming and crazy), a paranoid Treasury employee who thinks he's being followed at every turn. As characters get mixed up and turned around, the plot culminates in violence. This is what I think turned people off to Burn After Reading-- in what starts out as such a silly film, the contrast is too alienating. To me, it was a testament to the immediacy of guns and emotion-- things are done very quickly that can never be undone. All of the characters have a tremendous lack of foresight, and it all comes out to bite them in the ass. This is hard to pull off, but Burn After Reading manages to do it without making the viewer feel they've wasted their time.

While the action and emotion do fall flat occasionally-- particularly towards the beginning-- Burn After Reading never fails to entertain, and it such a silly movie, that's all I can really ask for.

Final Grade: B+

 

I watched the first two episodes of Deadwood

I'm going to do this a little differently. I'm going to talk about the first two episodes together, instead of individually. I'm also going to try out a more casual, relaxed tone. We'll see how it goes.

I wanted to watch Deadwood for two reasons: I absolutely love Westerns and it is Todd VanDerWerff's favorite show ever. With those two strong impetuses, I dived in. My first impression was that it was very, very HBO (and that's a huge compliment). The show wastes no time with unnecessary exposition or character introduction. For a small town, things move very quickly, and it requires the viewer to be attentive. I was lulled into a false sense of security, as the last HBO show I watched was Game of Thrones, and I was already familiar with the characters from reading the books. Deadwood humbled me right from the get-go, but the more I paid attention, the more I got out of the show (imagine that). The second thing I thought was "damn, this show is well-acted." It wasn't overly flashy, and when it did require sharp outbursts of emotion, they didn't seem as if they were pandering for an Emmy. The first two episodes were so explosive. It's to be expected in a land without law. I was impressed on how the various characters kept each other in check. Swearagen is obviously the kingpin of the town, but he feels threatened by Hickock, especially when his schemes start to unravel. I particularly enjoyed Seth Bollock with his quiet demeanor.

That paragraph is very sporadic, and that's how I felt watching the show. It's a lot to take in, especially with hour-long episodes, and the small bits and pieces that I was able to capture felt so right for the show that I was able to understand the parts I didn't get, a la Troy Barnes. There are a lot of characters, and it doesn't help that a lot of them have identical facial hair. Maybe it's just that all white people look alike to me (I am white, so this is a problem).

I'll have to rewatch to have a more coherent post. I'll say this: it captures human nature and economic wants very well. I'm excited to continue.

Review-- "Goodfellas"

"As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster."

Leave it to Scorsese to start off a crime epic on a child's dream. Among the uncountable things that make Goodfellas (in my opinion) the finest film of the 90s (and possibly ever), it's a man's journey into his dream, a man getting everything he ever wanted, and what he does with it when he gets it. It's nothing new to film, but Scorsese pulls out all the stops to ensure that Goodfellas leaves an indelible impression on every viewer. It's been about 24 hours since I watched it, but I just can't get it out of my head. The voiceovers, the music, the still images, the long camera shots-- Scorsese is a technical master, but it's never showy. If anything, the camera magic is overshadowed by the fiery dialogue, or the narration that could have taken a serious misstep in so many places, but only ever adds to the turbulence of the film's main relationship, or the actors bringing something that only Scorsese seems to provide.

My thoughts on Goodfellas feel like the cocaine-aided bender at the end of the film. Sure, it's easy to say that it's a synecdote of America, the greatest crime film ever made, or any other classification. It's a thousand things at once, but it never feels forced. I was reminded of a quote from Game of Thrones: "Any man who must say 'I am the king' is no true king." Any film that has to remind its audience that its important is going to suffer. Goodfellas, in all its different themes and segments, never has to tell us that it's a great film. It tells its story and that's it.

That's not to say it isn't bold (any film that has a character break the fourth wall isn't playing it safe). There are so many techniques (I've already listed several) that could have broken the film through gimmick, but they all enhance the story, make it more real as they stop to meditate. I couldn't help but thinking about Pulp Fiction (one of the few films that rivals Goodfellas for me) and how its visual flourishes made the film, for the lack of a better word, cool. The square Uma Thurman draws with her finger, Bruce Willis with a machete, it's all stylized for the sake of style. It adds to the film, of course, but Tarantino is trying to make the film iconic (and he wildly, wildly succeeds). While it seems like this contradicts what I said earlier about films trying to seem great, Tarantino pulls it off through bombast and self-parody. Goodfellas is an intensified reality, while Pulp Fiction is an absurdist one. 

That may be the strongest part of Goodfellas: it feels real. I'm reminded of the scene in the Copacabana where Henry is given everything on a silver platter, and Karen asks "what do you do?" It seems illogical that a 21 year old could achieve that level of clout. Karen hasn't entered that world yet, but we have, and her outsider perspective as a Jewish girl shows how strange the gangster life is. Goodfellas constantly challenges us by showing how relateable and empathetic these characters can be and then contrasting that by showing the vicious  thing that they do. Anger, guilt, and lust all backdropped by mafia hits and theft create a savage America that somehow is real. The morality and guilt at the core of Henry Hill remind me of Breaking Bad, as a character dives deep into the rabbit hole of crime and looses his humanity. Without giving away the ending, its impact surprised me. It wasn't what I thought would happen, but it perfectly bookends the Henry's ambitions, rise, and fall. It walks the two sides of morality with acumen that's rarely seen. 

I'm failing to find more words, more that can be said about this movie. I've never been so impressed in so many different ways. I haven't touched on any of the characters besides Henry and Karen, or the 30 year narrative that encapsulates the mafia life. I haven't talked about the improvised dialogue that adds so much flavor. Simply, it's a brutal, intense picture of America that will shake you. It won't leave you alone, and it shouldn't. 

Final Grade: A+